East TN legislator joins in honoring Confederate flag

A state legislator spoke Saturday at a gathering in front of the Sullivan County courthouse to honor the history and heritage of the Confederate flag, reports the Bristol Herald Courier. The event was organized by the Sons of Confederate Veterans as part of the organization’s national Confederate Flag Day and comes with controversy afoot elsewhere over Confederate recognition.

“You can’t help but have a sense of pride in home and preservation of our history and our story because that’s who we are,” said state Rep. Timothy Hill, R-Blountville, speaking about Blountville’s Civil War history. “When you let go of that, when you start allowing monuments to be defaced and erased, you forget your roots.”

Hill said he attended reenactment events when he was younger.

“I got to bear the colors,” Hill said. “Even then, I understood what a tremendous honor that was as part of that reenactment.”

The representative said the state legislature will likely respond to recent incidents in Memphis, where Confederate monuments were removed late last year.

“I suspect there will be a response, hopefully an appropriate response, from the legislature,” Hill said. “It remains to be seen what that’s going to be.”

Billie Joe Holley, commander of the Vaughn’s Brigade chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said Confederate Flag Day has been held locally for three consecutive years.

“I stood here a year ago, right there on the steps, and told you that we were at war,” Holley said. “They are trying to destroy us. You look back at the events of the last year and I’m not a prophet but I can see what’s going on. The south was full of men in the 1830s on and knew what was going to happen.”

Holley thanked Hill for attending the ceremony, adding that many politicians would not have attended due to the flag.

Notes: One of several bills filed in response to the Memphis move on Confederate monuments is sponsored by Hill’s brother, Rep. Matthew Hill (R-Jonesborough). HB2146, which hasn’t been scheduled for a committee vote, would authorize state government to seize historic monuments from private owners – such as the non-profit company that took possession of Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest statues – and says public officials “negatively impacting the historic recognition of such property” can be ousted from office.

Another bill (HB2554) has cleared a House sub and is scheduled for a vote in the full State Government Committee, but would not directly impact the Memphis statue situation since it applies to future actions, not past actions. Sponsor Rep. Dawn White (R-Murfreesboro) says it would “close a loophole” in current law. (Commercial Appeal story HERE.)

Murals in the gym of a Crossville Elementary School have been modified to remove rebel flags and what initially looks like a depiction of a lynching, after complaints to the director of the school district.

5 Responses to East TN legislator joins in honoring Confederate flag

The complaint to the Cumberland County school district in Crossville came from a basketball fan from Tullahoma who came to Crossville in order to attend a grammar school basketball game. I guess his/her team lost the game putting him/her out of sorts! I do wish those transplanted yankees would stay up north where they have ruined their life style in the north and not bring their grievances South with them. They are very boring people.

A lot of us from up north are overjoyed to be in Tennessee and we have the utmost respect for Tennessee history and have a decidedly nuanced view of the Civil War. Please remember that one of the reasons that the Republican Party and the conservatism that comes with it has prospered in this state in recent years is the fact that so many conservative Yankees with a Republican tradition have moved to Tennessee.

I assure you cjmcd I share your fear of sullen liberals, mainly through job transfers, coming into this state in enough numbers so that they carry with them the civic pathologies that I thankfully escaped from many years ago. With that in mind, may I say again I am rooting AGAINST Nashville being named the site for that new Amazon headquarters.

These people forget or deny that the confederate flag symbolizes, in addition to slavery and racism, the treasonous rebellion of the South against the United States which did not, as we all know, succeed. This is one country, not separate kingdoms.

I’m afraid you’re soooooo 1860 Axel. May I call your attention to the fact that for a long time civilized democratic countries have recognized the right of a population to separate itself from the country within which it finds itself.

Did the Canadians regard those Quebecois “treasonous” who wanted to leave Canada? How about the population of the U.K. when enough separatists in Scotland wanted to leave so that a referendum had to be conducted ? Then there were the Czechs when the Slovaks successfully gained their independence from what was Czechoslovakia. I bet the Montenegrins made you furious when they separated themselves recently from Serbia. I could go on but I’m sure you get the idea.

BTW, please note that not only are todays secessionists not called nasty names, no thought is given to armed conflict of the type ole Abe Lincoln brought down on the Southern States who overwhelmingly chose to secede in democratic elections. Of course, in recent times Pakistan wouldn’t allow what was East Pakistan to peacefully secede, as one of the few examples of your 1860 thinking in modern times, does that make you feel better?

I don’t choose to fly the confederate flag, however I don’t believe that most of those that do are racist. My great, great grandfather fought with the conferate army. He was from the hills of Smith County and owned no slaves. He was just responding to the call of his state, like so many of the confederate soldiers. I can respect his call to duty without being racist.